


but whom can you trust

by necropants



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, background vimes/sybil, implied vetinari/drumknott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7775047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necropants/pseuds/necropants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During <i>Feet of Clay</i>, Vimes ends up hanging out at the Palace. After all, the only competent leader Ankh-Morpork has known in centuries has been poisoned half to death. And might get a bit bored or lonely. Can't be having that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but whom can you trust

**Author's Note:**

> Vimes canonically gets amazingly stroppy about Vetinari not wanting him to camp out at the Palace fussing over him in _Feet of Clay_. I've always wanted even more of the quasi-h/c-ish scenario Vimes seems to be intent on.

When Vimes finally staggered home, Sybil was nowhere to be found. At this time of night, he’d expected her to be in bed, but she wasn’t. Nor was she in the sitting room, which was about as far as he got before he had to sit down and panic for a moment. Then he heard a bang outside, and felt, actually, much calmer. Of course -- the dragon pens. He got to his aching feet and trudged out to find her sitting in a rocking chair among the stables, cradling a blanket-wrapped bundle.

“Home already?” she asked. The bundle in her arms wheezed and produced a cloud of smoke.

“‘Already’? It’s nearly eleven.”

“But you sent for an overnight bag.”

“I did, didn’t I?” It was difficult to remember anything he’d done about twelve hours and a headfirst landing in a gutter ago. “I thought I was needed at the Patrician’s palace, but he thought I wasn’t.”

“Did he hurt your feelings?” Sybil chuckled.

Vimes sighed, sitting down heavily on an overturned bucket, and chose not to answer.

“That bad, then? How is he, anyway?”

“Irritating. What’ve you got there?” One of the younger dragons, wandering loose, sat at his feet. Vimes pulled out a cigar, held it in front of the dragon’s snout, and tickled its belly until the cigar lit.

“Oh, well, remember how I mentioned Eggy’s been off his feed?” Vimes, who didn’t, nodded. He didn’t even recall her having ever mentioned a dragon by that name, although it did seem to match the creature’s odor. “He’s not getting any better, and I just couldn’t leave him on his own...”

“You’re not staying up all night, are you?”

“Might do. Just to keep an eye on this poor dear, you know.”

“If that _poor dear_ blows up --”

“Yes, yes... you should go get some sleep.”

A fairly stupid idea had begun to percolate through Vimes’ brain. He shook his head. “Don’t think I could even if I tried. I’ll... I might go back to the Watch House, you know, check up on some things...”

  


He did not go back to the Watch House.

Instead, Vimes found his feet carrying him back to the palace, where he got in easily enough by showing his badge to one of the regular guards on duty. He crept upstairs and found Detritus, who was marginally cleverer than the palace guards, slightly less cooperative.

“Can’t let you in, sir,” Detritus boomed, stopping him gently with a hand wider than his shoulders.

“Shh! Of course you can!” Vimes whispered.

Catching on, the troll dropped his voice to a low rumble. “But what if you’re der poisoner?”

“Do you _think_ I’m the poisoner?”

“‘Course not, Mr Vimes, sir. But den why’d you come back?”

Vimes thought about it. “Well... shit. Probably to startle a trained assassin who knows damn well they really _are_ out to get him.”

“Dere’s an assassin? Well, I din’t let him in, sir.”

“No, I mean, Vetinari! He’s the assassin.”

“Den he’s assassinin’ himself? Who’d do dat?”

“Never _mind_. So, are you letting me in?” Vimes made to begin circumnavigating the enormous bulk of troll.

“Nuh uh. I got orders, sir. Der Patrician said, don’t let Commander Fussbudget through,” Detritus replied, shifting to block him.

“Huh. Really? Commander _Fussbudget_?”

“Dat’s you, sir. I asked,” Detritus replied, clearly proud of his investigative skills.

“So... I suppose Commander Fussbudget can’t just order you to forget about that and let him in anyway?”

“Oh, sure he can.”

“What, really?”

“‘Course, sir. Orders from you comes first. Hope you catch dat assassin, sir!” Vimes winced at the troll’s audible salute.

  
  


Squinting into the darkness of the Patrician’s bedroom, Vimes was alarmed to see the bed was empty. A second later, he was even more alarmed to feel a knife trembling at his throat and a bony vicegrip twisting his wrist up toward his shoulderblades.

“Vimes, what are _you_ doing here?” Lord Vetinari hissed in his ear.

Talking with a knife resting on his larynx seemed a tricky proposition, but not answering seemed worse. “Just checking up -- I’m not the poisoner --”

“Of course you’re not. But why storm off in a huff and slam the door just to rush right back?”

“Hours ago -- didn’t _slam_ it --” Vimes was not enjoying being held at knifepoint by a man who seemed to have the shakes. On the bright side, the underside of his jaw had needed shaving anyway.

“And how did you get past the guards?”

“ _My_ guards --”

“Well, in any case, I suppose I may as well let you stay.” He released Vimes’ wrist and lifted the blade from his throat.

“Sir?” Vimes turned cautiously to face him, trying to avoid sudden movements. Vetinari didn’t look especially dangerous; his skin was an unsettling clammy white against the charcoal grey of his nightshirt, and he was leaning on the wall behind him just to stay on his feet.

But Vimes knew well enough not to underestimate anyone just because they _looked_ less than threatening. The Watch was called in frequently enough to help extract wounded animals from cupboards, privies, and just about any other dark corner you could think of for him to be sure of that. (You did not want to meet a wounded animal in your privy. Feeling vulnerable tended to make them go for _your_ vulnerables.)

“It’s what you want, yes? I practically had to chase you out the door earlier. And in any case, if your Watchmen let you past them, they’re clearly useless.”

“They’re not useless! Sir!”

“Right. Apologies. But I did specifically tell them not to let you --”

“Right, you went over my head to tell my men not to let in Commander Fussbudget --”

“Dear me, did he repeat that? Ah, well, in any case, while you’re here, I don’t particularly suppose I can drag myself back to bed on my own...”

“Of course, sir.” Vimes reached an arm around him to help him shuffle slowly across the room and collapse into bed.

“And while you’re here, you may as well get some sleep.”

“No, sir. I’m here to stand guard.”

“Be that as it may, I intend to sleep, and I’m not having you watch. And I’m sure you feel almost as dreadful as I do. Here.” Vetinari threw a heap of bedding toward him, and Vimes was beaned solidly by a thin pillow several seconds before it occurred to him to catch it. He realized he was in fact a little tired. Maybe more than a little. Maybe he’d been a _little_ tired hours earlier, and was now headed toward... “Really, Vimes, you look dead on your feet.”

Vimes shrugged, took off his armor, and made himself comfortable on the floor between the bed and the door. Not bad, really. He’d never gotten used to beds anyway; he’d never had one growing up. Nonetheless, he lay awake until he could tell, from the sound of his quiet snoring, that Vetinari had gone to sleep.

  
  


The next day, Cheery came by to quite a cheery scene. The two men had set up some sort of game, with complex arrays of cards spread out over the blanket. Lord Vetinari was propped up on a pile of pillows, looking only slightly more pallid than usual, and Vimes had brought a chair over to sit next to him.

“Commander Vimes, sir?”

“Ah, Constable Littlebottom!” Vimes replied brightly, and then, to the Patrician: “Just a moment, sir?”

“Of course.”

“Sir, it’s just --” Cheery began.

“Could we talk out in the hall?”

Cheery glanced over her shoulder at the Patrician, who was staring at them as they left as if he’d been rather looking forward to eavesdropping.

As soon as the door was shut, Vimes started gibbering, wild-eyed, wringing his hands. “Oh, let’s play a _game_ , Vimes! Do you want to play another game that I’m the best at? This is a game I invented just to be the _best_ at! And here’s a game we used to play at Killing-People School! Someone else was the best at it once, but now he’s dead!”

“Oh, um, well. At least His Lordship is feeling better?”

“He can still barely stand, but otherwise he’d be bouncing off the walls!”

Vimes was still fidgeting with his hands, and they were a little red. Perhaps he’d come in contact with the poison...

“Really, are you okay?”

“Why did I offer to teach him Klatchian Ratscrew?” he groaned. “Never played it before, my arse. Littlebottom, it’s like I always say: if someone asks you how to play a game, that doesn’t mean they don’t know how to play it!”

“Oh. Right, sir. Apologies, but you don’t really need to stay and, er, babysit him, do you?” She winced, not sure why she’d had to go and say that, but Vimes just laughed, bringing a hand up over his eyes to rub his temples.

“Of course, you’re right. You didn’t come here just to listen to me whinge, did you?”

“Oh, um, sir, of course I’m always here if you need to whinge, but, no, it’s just, Carrot and Angua were just at Gimlet's Hole Food Delicatessen, brought me back some rat ‘n chips, to test, not for lunch... stuffed to the _gills_ with arsenic, sir. Um, if rats had gills.”

“Right. Good work, all of you. Especially you. It’s only your, what, third day on the job?”

“Second, sir. Thank you, sir!” Cheery chirped. Her toe was scuffing bashfully in the carpet, in some unconscious response to the sort of praise she’d never got back at the Alchemists’ Guild. She quickly put a stop to it, wondering how tall people ever had any idea what their toes were getting up to from so far away. “And, sir, I think we were kind of wondering... well, we were wondering when you’d be free to come back to the station?”

Vimes considered this. Logically, there wasn’t much of a reason for him to be camping out here playing cards with a tyrant, and yet, it seemed very important. Maybe best not to think too hard about that. “As soon as I can. If you need me, I’ll be right here.”

“Right, sir. No problem.”

“And you can send a carrier pigeon, and if we’re lucky Constable Downspout won’t be feeling too peckish...”

“Of course, sir. I’ll just be heading back now, then?”

“Sure. Get yourself some _actual_ lunch, too. And keep up the good work.” He went back into the Patrician’s room, wondering if Cheery had hoped to fool anybody by drawing on eyebrows, big bushy proper-dwarfish ones, to replace the ones sacrificed to the cause of alchemy.

Vetinari looked up from his attempt at building something out of cards on his bedside table, which seemed to be rather pitifully impeded by the fact that his hands were still shaky. “Ah, you’re back! I’ve taken the liberty of putting away that game -- surely you noticed you ran out of winning moves three rounds ago?”

“No, sir, I ran out of winning moves when I agreed to play against you.”

Vetinari covered his mouth and his shoulders shook slightly. Vimes realized that was his version of laughing and couldn’t help laughing too.

“What’s with the --” Vimes mimicked the gesture, covering his own mouth. “You know, I’ll be out ten dollars if you’re a vampire.”

“No fangs, I promise.” He grinned a surprisingly unthreatening grin to prove it. “Now, I do believe there is an Exclusive Possession set in my office.”

“Never played that one, sir.”

“Oh, it’s very simple. The game board represents a city, and the object of the game is to take over all its streets, utilities, et cetera. If you control them all, you own the city, and then you win. Simple enough?”

“Could we try a game I might win this time, sir?”

  
  


The next shift of guards brought with them paperwork and a takeaway pizza. The paperwork was for Vimes; Carrot had realized he might be getting bored, and everyone else on duty had recognized a good opportunity to shift some of the papers that had begun to pile up in drifts on his desk and threaten to avalanche onto the floor. And the pizza, in theory, was for Vetinari, although he seemed to have his doubts.

“You’re quite certain this is pizza?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is this rat?” Vetinari asked, prodding at a lump of ground meat.

“Rat? ‘Course not, rat’s too expensive. Anyway, nothing wrong with rat... if they weren’t poisoning it, of course.”

“But they’re such intelligent animals! And they farm them in quite deplorable conditions...”

“I promise, it’s not rat. You really should eat, sir.”

“Perhaps, but it feels rude to eat while you just sit there, Vimes.”

“Sir?”

“Have I mentioned how irritating it is to hear a man of your intelligence say ‘Sir?’ in that stupid way?” While Vimes tried to work out if that had been a compliment, Vetinari held out the pizza box toward him. “Here. Have some pizza. Why didn’t they bring you anything?”

“Probably figured I might as well pop out and get something myself,” Vimes said, although what he was thinking was that they clearly knew how _bloody weird_ he’d feel about eating takeaway pizza with the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.

“What sort of something?”

“Oh... probably takeaway pizza.” He took a slice and bit into it. Burnt crunchy crust, burnt crunchy toppings, and burnt crunchy cheese. Just the way he liked it. Vetinari deigned to pick up a slice too, and Vimes snorted. “I get it. You just wanted to see if I’d fall over dead!”

“I assure you, I would _never_ use you as a food taster. Anyway, very few poisons would take effect that quickly.”

  
  


After they (mainly Vimes) finished off the pizza, Vimes nipped out into the hallway to check up on the guards, and nearly bumped into Drumknott, who was poised to knock on the door, holding a huge stack of paper. “Ah, Sir Samuel, I was just coming to give His Lordship these reports...”

“No sick leave for the wicked, eh?”

“Sir Samuel, I don’t think that’s quite...” the young secretary said, in an odd tone that could only be described as a reproachful mumble.

“Oh, I don’t mean ‘wicked’, I just mean he drops dissidents in a scorpion pit... I’m sorry. I’m kidding. Ha ha, only serious? You look worried.”

“Is he... quite all right?” Drumknott asked. Suddenly too shy to look Vimes in the eye, he looked him in the bootlaces instead.

“Do you want to come in and ask him yourself?”

“I’m not wholly sure that would be proper.”

“I’m sure you’ve seen him in his pyjamas before --”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean --”

Vimes sighed. “I don’t think I wanna know what you _think_ I mean, but... listen, he’s fine. He’s on the mend. Come say hi.” Vimes grabbed Drumknott by the elbow and led him into the room. Vetinari perked up a little at the sight of him. Or maybe at the sight of the horrendous stack of reports; Vimes had always suspected him for a bit of a masochist.

“Ah, Drumknott! I don’t think I’ve seen you since I, er, collapsed.”

“Yes, sir. Are you feeling better, sir?”

“Certainly getting there.”

“Very good, sir.” Drumknott handed him the reports and hurried out, leaving Vimes wondering what exactly _that_ all had been about. He looked for some sort of hint on Vetinari’s face, but he was already engrossed in reading, so Vimes went back to his paperwork. As the night drew in, Vimes lit the half-used candle from last night. Despite its steady, bright light, Vetinari started rubbing his eyes, until Vimes’ started to itch in sympathy (he told himself that was all it was).

After several minutes of staring dazedly at the same page, Vetinari murmured, “Vimes, would you mind...”

“Yes, sir?”

“Perhaps if I rested my eyes... just for a minute...” His voice sounded very small.

“Just go to sleep, sir. Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning.” Something was telling Vimes that, on the other hand, maybe he wouldn’t. Whatever it was, it felt very far away, as if it were standing on a distant hilltop, waving flags.

“I can’t, I’ll already have so much to catch up on... but I can’t... so I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind reading them to me?” Vimes heard a note of sheepishness creeping in.

“No way I’m reading all this. A few pages? Then you should sleep.”

“Good enough.” Vetinari handed Vimes the heavy stack of paper, then lay flat on his back, folded his hands over his chest, and closed his red-rimmed eyes. He looked rather like a vampire, or a corpse, which was so predictable Vimes wasn’t even unsettled by it.

The top page was some type of financial report. Vimes hadn’t any more of a head for numbers than anyone else, but he could see things were looking pretty grim just by the excess of red ink in one column and the lack of black ink in the other. Ankh-Morpork’s taxpayers weren’t coughing up much beyond pocket lint and Exclusive Possession money, despite its terrifying and ruthlessly efficient leadership... which, admittedly, was to say: a peaky beanstalk in a nightshirt.

Deciding that a man who was already standing at death’s door shouldn’t be given reasons to want to walk through it, he flipped ahead to something more uplifting: a transcript of one of the soapbox rhetoricians in Sator Square.

“‘The problem with this city is the people at the top don’t never listen to us down below, that’s what’s the matter, dirty lying bastards letting in foreigners and golems and foreign golems and all of them stealing jobs from good honest Morporkians --’ ha, wonder where they find those, ‘-- soon as they start making golems what can speak I’ll be out of a job too see if they don’t...’ Do you really read all this bullshit -- excuse me -- do you really read all this yourself?”

“Why not? They want to be listened to...”

“But you’ve got a whole city to run. Wouldn’t it be easier to let someone else handle the details?”

“Ah, yes... delegating... I’ve never been especially good at that. Perhaps... you could give me some pointers.”

Vimes thought about all the pickpockets he’d personally chased down in the past week, and the tavern brawls he’d broken up, and the fact that perhaps it wasn’t wholly necessary for him to be giving round-the-clock attention to the minor matter of the poisoning-half-to-death of the only competent leader Ankh-Morpork had known in centuries. “Yeah, perhaps.”

  
  


Cheery pounded on the door. No response. And when she tried the handle, it was locked, and knowing the two men inside the room, even odds on it being barricaded shut. She rammed the door with her shoulder, which any ordinary barricade would have yielded to -- being a dwarf, although she was half the height of your average human, she was nearly twice the width, and kitted out in chainmail besides -- but it remained firmly shut.

Nothing for it, then. She turned to Detritus. “Sergeant, could you open the door for me?”

“Gladly.” He reached out a long arm, pushed the door over as if it were cardboard, and followed her into the room.

Vimes was folded double in a chair, his upper body resting on the bed, with one arm flung over the Patrician’s chest. Cheery almost felt as if she was intruding. But they looked more than just asleep; Vetinari was so ghastly pale, and she wouldn’t swear to it that either man was breathing. She climbed up onto the bed, dislodging a couple papers that were strewn over it, to check each for a pulse, and was relieved to confirm they were both still alive.

“Commander? Commander Vimes, sir?” She shook him by the shoulder. No response.

“Littlebottom, do you want _I_ should try shakin’ him?” Detritus offered.

“Probably better if you don’t.”

“Okay.” He instead tapped him very, very delicately with one pinkie. “Message from Lady Sybil, sir.”

Vimes jerked upright, groaning, and whirled round to face them. He clutched his head. “Wuh?”

“Lady Sybil tole us you can maybe t’ink ‘bout goin’ home every now and then if you don’t got nuttin’ better to do than fussing like a mother hen about Havelock, ‘cos he’s as bad of a trouble magnet as you and he ain’t died yet, so you can go home and see your wife sometimes. And also der dragon blowed up and don’t worry ‘cos she’s safe but sometimes you just gotta let nature take its course. Is what she says.” He thought for a moment and added, “And _she_ called him Havelock. I doesn’t call him dat. I calls him not lookin’ too good.”

Vimes blinked groggily at him. Most of this seemed to fly right over his head with what was almost an audible whoosh. “Eggy?” Detritus and Cheery exchanged glances. “Not looking too --?” And then he realized that the Patrician was still lying there like a waxwork and grabbed and shook him. “ _Shit_. Wake up, you old snake. C’mon.”

“Mr Vimes, I think we should get you both out of this room -- it’s got to be something in here, that’s why you got ill sitting up with him --”

He didn’t seem to really be listening. He stared at Vetinari for a long moment, as if daring him to stay unconscious a second longer, then slapped him across the face. The instant it connected, Vetinari’s hand shot up and caught his wrist, holding Vimes’ hand against his cheek. Then he opened his eyes.

“Vimes?”

“Don’t you _dare_ snuff it like that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it...”

  
  


The Watchmen moved them to a different room and fetched Doughnut Jimmy. Vetinari insisted that if it came to it, he would sooner die in peace than have more strange concoctions poured down his throat by a horse doctor. Vimes, however, figured it couldn’t possibly be that bad, and so wound up perched on the edge of the bed being heartily sick into a bucket.

“It was the bloody candles, wasn’t it?” he rasped. “Bet you figured that out before I did.”

“You might very well think that.”

“What I wanna know is, if horses can’t vomit --” Vimes broke off to dry-heave.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” Vetinari murmured.

“I should’ve listened...”

Vimes felt a spindly hand rubbing circles on his back, which, he thought, sounded much more unsettling in theory than it actually was. Sounded quite ghostly, getting snuck up on by some spindly hand on your back, but unexpected though it was, he knew perfectly well it belonged to the most terrifying man he knew, so that was all right.


End file.
